


will you follow the gods home

by anthropologicalhands



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Erik's thoughts about Thor's place in Jane's life, Gen, Post-Thor: The Dark World, spoilers for movies through Thor 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-12
Updated: 2014-01-12
Packaged: 2018-01-08 11:25:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1132068
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anthropologicalhands/pseuds/anthropologicalhands
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane loves Thor. Erik can't help but worry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	will you follow the gods home

When Thor returns to Earth, Jane’s joy is wondrous to behold. Erik is glad of it, glad that her faith in Thor bore fruit at last. But he cannot find it within himself to share it.

It is nothing personal. He likes Thor. Trusts him with the Earth. Owes him his life. Younger than what Erik might have expected of the god of thunder, if he presumed to expect anything, but matches his mythic counterpart well. Thor was always one of the more benevolent gods, in his mother’s stories. 

But this Thor is flesh and blood. He is not just a natural phenomenon or a symbolic manifestation of the harvest. He is a man.

And this man loves and is loved by Jane.

Oh, _Jane_. 

The astrophysicist with the crazy dream and the drive, if not the funds, to prove it true. The girl who once sat curled up in her father’s office, skinny and serious, reading everything she could about the stars, both fictions and facts. 

And now when she works to determine where the fictions end and the facts begin, the stars have offered her the answers in the form of an alien prince.

To the man who has long thought of himself as a guardian to Jane, Thor is terrifying. 

When he thought Thor just a man, he already feared for Jane. He could not trust that what Thor claimed might be true, might be what Jane needed. Not when words of Erik’s mother tongue spilt so easily from his lips, as though he has spoken them all his life, the same lips that smiled at Jane and promised her answers…for a price. 

Even when they went drinking together, and he found Thor to be more lost than malicious, Erik did not soften his warning. The itchy feeling at the back of his head, his wariness, did not abate merely from sharing drinks and songs. It grew worse when he awoke in Jane’s trailer with his worst hangover in forty years and Thor not gone but in Jane’s kitchen, watching her fry eggs over the stove. 

The only consolation was the careful foot or so of space they kept between them. At the very least, it wasn’t _that_ sort of morning after. Still, the light in Jane’s eyes was brighter than ever and the message could be no clearer: Jane wanted Thor to stay, and so he would. 

In the end of course, she was right and he was wrong in this respect. Thor could be trusted.

After Puente Antiguo, it becomes all the clearer that his role as guardian is no longer necessary. After Loki invades his mind, wrings him dry for his skills and his knowledge—every scrap about Jane—Erik does not entirely trust himself as a protector. 

It should relieve him, to know Thor’s regard for Jane, but all he feels is troubled. The devotion of a god has rarely ended well for mortals. Throw ‘alien’ into the mix and Erik is not sure the world won’t try to self-destruct.

(Well, he supposes that won’t be such a problem; they have saved it from worse.)

It isn’t that Erik doubts Thor’s intentions: he sees how Thor smiles at her, their comfort with each other. Thor is exactly the sort of partner Sean Foster wanted for his daughter: respectful, adoring, and every bit as immersed in the universe as she is.

It’s just that…

Thor changes everything. 

His presence in New Mexico forced Earth to confront the reality of other worlds and other beings.

And he has irrevocably changed Erik’s life…as he changed Jane’s.

It is a relief to know that despite the Bifrost’s renewal, Jane still _burns_ to build her own bridge to Asgard, one that can be operated from Earth, simply because she knows it is there. Because she knows that it is possible. 

That core of herself remains immutable. Let others insinuate that she only wanted the bridge for the man at the end. She will prove them wrong.

It galls him that the medicines he must take to soothe his mind have also dulled his senses. The last two years are a blur to him, and the memories he does keep are unevenly spaced. He remembers Jane’s diligent search, though the specifics are lost. He knows (from Darcy) that she tried to move on. Let herself mope but never stopped working. Turned her research away from Asgard and focused on the unusual occurrences which signaled the Convergence. 

But naturally, it was the Convergence that brought them together again. Erik does not call it fate—he suspects that to do so might ensure a tragic one.

He takes comfort in the fact of Thor’s open heart, his delight in Jane’s presence. He hopes their love for each other, simple but oh so strong, will be enough. He wonders, though he does not dare ask, if Idunn’s golden apples are more than mortal exaggeration. 

He prays silently (to whom, he cannot say) that she will have a happy ending.


End file.
